JFK-1

I think after the Stokes attack on Tavernier last season it will take maybe a stabbing to get a red card when playing against Rangers.

I'm debating with myself whether I even want to watch this anymore. It's ruined as an even contest and can tell us little about our team going forward.

So the season is just minutes old and it starts again.

Sheep 0 - Rangers 3 FGS Morelos

I'm literally counting down the hours now but need to get some sleep. It's a 7am kick off for me.

No one else think the Croats looked a better side than anything we saw from the sheep last season?

Really don’t think so. Probably more like Burnley aren’t as good as you would expect an EPL budget to be.

When Osijek got on the ball it could be seen that they are a very useful side indeed yet we were well capable of negating them the vast majority of the time. The midfield looks incomparably more solid than last season winning most balls. We even have defence splitting 50 yard passes coming out from our own back line which put Morelos in for a shot and behind that defence McGregor looks like an iron curtain. This team can only get better with familiarity and that's even before we bring in as yet untested new additions. Sunday will be illuminating but even if we win I don't know if winning at the sheep pen demonstrates any progress because we were doing that last season. Maybe if it were an awesome display and a crushing win.

I don't know if that Osijek manager is just a total prick or his English is so remedial he doesn't quite grasp what a prick he's being. Whatever Steven Gerrard may be he's no "tiny man" in the world of football. And it pretty much goes without saying that the middle finger to a crowd needs no translation.

Have to be happy to be going into the next round. I think I remember some around here a couple of months or so ago predicting this would be our exit point and I now feel that Osijek may very well have been a better team than Maribor are. And maybe even a lot better than we think they are. I now feel that we can beat Maribor and if so then it all depends on the luck of the draw in the play off round. But next order of business, sheep on Sunday which I can't wait for. It's a 7am kick off time for me.

Sheep out. Let’s compound the misery on Sunday.

They rarely make it relaxing for us.

I don't think what they have done in the last few seasons has any relevance to this season. This was our record against them last season with a manager who wasn't working out and a problematic defence. won 2-1 away won 3-0 at home won 2-0 at home drew 1-1 away Took 10 out of 12 points from them which was a better league record against them than the yahoos had and I see no reason for that to be any different this time around. What has to be different this time around is the stuttering to also rans particularly at home. And so far the pre season and Euro ties seem to suggest we have gone a long way to solving the defence problems. I simply don't see them as being a major challenge to us. But as you say it's all speculative until the season gets up and running for a quarter or so but taking everything into account I feel my speculation is the most likely outcome. They weren't a challenge to us in head to heads last season and shouldn't be this season either.

I don't get what makes them think the sheep are such a challenge. The yahoos yes but not the sheep. We beat them more often than not last season and could have finished above them right up to the last day yet this guy portrays it as if we have a job on our hands to keep up with the sheep? We have considerably strengthened while they're pretty much what they were last year. Anyone being realistic should be deciding that the sheep will be the ones challenged to keep up with us not the other way around. Our problem last year was dropping points to also rans not to the sheep.

Sutton: Lafferty is a ‘nutter’ It does appear, going by press reports now, that Kyle Lafferty is going to get his Rangers move and re-join his club for the second time.There are some negotiations over price, but unlike other examples, it looks like Rangers will get their man and have some real quality up front.However we were amused to see the Chris Sutton nonsense, and even more amused to see his piffle making headlines.Sutton proclaimed Lafferty is a ‘nutter’ and explained that he’s a ticking timebomb. Now we do know Lafferty hasn’t always been the most wholesome of players, with a few little incidents in the past, so we have dispensation for that. But what makes us laugh is Sutton didn’t raise this point last summer when Hearts signed him. In fact, he didn’t say a thing – strange how Lafferty is suddenly toxic and a ticking timebomb only when Rangers sign him, no one else…What disappoints us is the evident trolling Sutton is guilty of here. We know he does this for attention, and because he’s paid for his opinion, and in fairness he’s attacked Celtic in the past as vigorously as he has Rangers.But to completely sacrifice all integrity, consistency and bring in rampant hypocrisy does force the idea that giving Sutton a platform to spout his nonsense on is a joke that’s gone on far too long.He can’t ‘rein it in’ – it’s what he does, yet the media laps it up and keeps giving him more headlines.Guess we’re guilty of that too, by merely discussing him here, but he’s affecting our club and saying incredibly stupid things which don’t stack up.Wind your neck in mate. https://www.ibroxnoise.co.uk/2018/08/pundits-laughable-lafferty-jibe.html

And I expect they also know he will want to go and wont be a happy camper if they force him to stay. Then just 5 months from now he's available for nothing on a pre contract.

It's simply what we have all come to know. Their obsession knows no bounds and contributes to us being more high profile than them in a media/social media sense. New season beckons for their team and all they want to do is talk about our team. Perhaps we should be flattered.

We need a striker and given budget and time limitations etc he seems the only remaining viable option. A proven quantity from last season and as good a backup as we can hope to bring in with the aforementioned limitations.

It’s being reported that I think it was Levein who is saying Lafferty’s “head has been turned” by the Rangers interest. Hardly surprising and you would think that might make it all the more imperative for them to strike a reasonable deal and offload him.

Saw it in a newspaper article. Can’t quite remember which paper.

I thought there may be some activity today as Gerrard said yesterday that he hoped to bring someone in during the next 24 hours.